the best books I read this month

Another month, another stack of books read. My husband jokes that he only sees about a quarter of the books that I read as they come in and out of the house so quickly (and he is probably right). But that is why I love living and working next to two different library systems, I never run out of books.

This month was a great reading month and I feel like I read so many interesting and different books and specifically different memoirs and stories of peoples’ lives who are so different from mine.

Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival by Kelly Sundberg
This true story of one woman’s struggle with domestic abuse was gripping, honest, and painful. It shows how and why people stay with those that hurt them and how hard it is to get out of the cycle of abuse. The author looks back at her childhood, and how she grew up and what led her to the life she led. I really enjoyed this book and it really opened my eyes to something I personally have never experienced.
The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed
“Who are the Nowhere Girls? They’re everygirl. But they start with just three.”
This book was the ultimate kick-ass feminist book that all teenage girls need to read. It brings together girls from all across a high school, a county, and the country as they band together against the boys that hurt them and for the girls that no one listened to. It tells a story that hasn’t been really told in YA fiction yet, and it is really inspiring, but sad that is something so prevalent in society that it is a story so many people know so well.
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
This book about a young Latinx girl’s discovery of slam poetry and how she uses it to help escape her life. I was drawn into this book quickly and didn’t want to leave the world it created. “Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.”
The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders
As I have started to minimize and declutter my life I have read a lot of books on the topic, but this one is very different from the rest. Cait seemed like a real woman, with real belongings and a love of things, like many of us are. Her journey to owning less seamed more realistic and didn’t involve many of the gimmicks that some of the other books do which I really appreciated. While this book doesn’t have the amount of tips and ideas as others, it really goes into the person behind the decluttering and how hard it can be.
Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls by Elizabeth Renzetti
I have read quite a few feminist essay collections over the past couple years, but this one is one that I really enjoyed and a little different. I loved that the author was Canadian, bringing in Canadian politics and Canadian situations in a world of American feminist collections was very refreshing and I could really relate to many of the situations and stories that she told throughout the collection.
The Jaguar’s Children by John Valliant
Though this book isn’t super recent I find that is very timely with the recent talks about refugees, border crossings, and what is going on in the United States. This entire book takes place inside of a empty water tanker, filled with people trying to get from Mexico to the United States and abandoned in the middle of the desert. As time goes on people get more and more desperate and Hector’s messages to the outside world through his friend’s Cesar’s phone become more needy. Going back into the past to see how they got here as well as history of the region really brought this book full circle.
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins
This book is described as being brutally honest and I completely agree. I learned so much through this book and it made me think about situations and ideas that I have never encountered before. As a white woman I believe it is important to read the writing of people of colour as there are things that I will never understand just living my own life.
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
This book of friendships, arranged marriages, cross-the-world searches, and characters that I fell in love with just a few pages in. Telling the story of two young Indian girls who meet and become best friends, they are driven away in a horrible act of cruelty but the one can’t let the other go and she goes all around the world trying to find her. This book showed the power of women, of resiliency, and how horrible the world can be. Nevertheless it gave me hope and it was not only full of pain.
Clean by Juno Dawson
Told from the perspective of a rich, drug-addicted socialite who finds herself unwillingly in rehab this book had a lot of heart, but also a lot of reality thrown in. This book explores the demons that everyone has inside of them and how life is full of ups and downs. I wasn’t expecting to like Lexi as much as I wanted to, but by the end of the book I felt really connected to her.